


Wounds

by AtropaAzraelle (Polyoxyethylene)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Banter, M/M, cuddling at the end of the world, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyoxyethylene/pseuds/AtropaAzraelle
Summary: He desperately wanted Noct back, and this darkness to end, so he could return to counting Ignis' freckles.Companion piece to Constellations.





	Wounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sauronix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauronix/gifts).



> Because you like a little bit pain with your love <3

He’d had to carry Ignis to the haven. His leg was a mess and they’d run out of potions. That was Ignis’s own rule, that one: no one carried excess potions; they didn’t have enough to go around. If you found yourself in a fight where you thought you needed more than you had, you were to retreat. Better to stay alive and make a tactical retreat than waste potions and still risk dying.

The Yojimbo had come up without warning. They’d been taking care of a Red Giant, clearing out a nest of them that threatened the route from Caem to Hammerhead, only one left out of the five that had been reported. Gladio had delivered the finishing blow, his greatsword cleaving through metallic skin and sending the daemon to its knees. It was still melting into a pit of miasma when Ignis shouted a warning.

Gladio got his shield out just in time thanks to that shout, and he saw Ignis backflip like a pro, hurling himself artfully out of danger as he’d done a thousand times before.

He saw the spikes of darkness jet up from the ground. He felt them hit his shield and knock his balance. He saw them reach for Iggy. He saw one tear into his leg like it was so much wet paper. He saw the blood.

He heard the cry.

Ignis had landed in a heap on his front, and Gladio abandoned all notions of fighting the daemon. Yojimbo were dangerous; more dangerous than most. They were smarter, and faster, and not something you wanted to try and fight without potions, and definitely not with a wounded teammate.

He’d kept his shield up as he’d run to Ignis, calling the man’s name like his life depended on it. A volley of something bounced off his shield, metallic and fast, as Gladio reached Ignis and crouched to cover him. Ignis managed to haul his weight onto his good leg and the moment there was a break in the daemon’s attack Gladio had dropped his shield, picked up Iggy, and run.

He hadn’t stopped until they’d reached the haven, where he’d settled Ignis carefully down onto the rock.

“I’m fine,” Ignis said, sitting up, and trying to hide the fact that he was wincing. Sometimes Gladio wondered if he forgot that other people could still see. It might be dark, but Ignis’ skin was pale and beautiful in the darkness, his hair darker without the sun to bleach it. Gladio would have to close his eyes to be unable to see Iggy, and that was before you took into account that he always wore a torch.

“You’re not,” he said, stretching Ignis’s wounded leg out slowly. Ignis hissed with pain, and Gladio could feel the wetness of fresh blood under his hand. They didn’t have bandages, but the truck would have more potions if they could get through. Gladio pulled his shirt up over his head and then gripped it in both hands and pulled hard. After a second, there was a slow tearing sound.

Ignis’ brow furrowed. “Was that your shirt?” he asked, the tone of his voice edging towards scolding.

“It’s bandages now,” Gladio answered, tearing some of it into thin strips as best he could.

Ignis sighed. “You liked that shirt,” he said, softly.

Gladio swallowed as he set to tugging Ignis’ tattered trouser leg up. “I like you more,” he said, simply. Ignis’ trousers stuck just below his knee, and Gladio bared his teeth at them for daring to delay his treatment of Ignis’s wounds. “Give me a knife.”

“It’s a dagger, Gladio,” Ignis said, in a teacherly tone. He summoned it anyway, the pale blue light of Noct’s magic throwing Ignis’ features into sharp relief for a moment, and Ignis offered the dagger out hilt first.

Gladio took it, and looked at it. Ignis had used these for years, but he’d originally trained with a sword. He remembered watching Ignis, sweating heavily, hair down, muscles of his bare arms standing out under his skin. He’d been hot then, but he was beautiful now. “If you want to get technical,” he replied, taking the stubborn leg of Ignis’ trousers and slipping the dagger inside gently, so the cold blade only rested against Iggy’s skin, “it’s more of a dirk.”

The blade cut through the cloth like it was soft butter, and Gladio put the weapon down as he bared Ignis’ leg. The attack from the daemon had torn flesh, and ripped at muscle. “A dirk is a kind of dagger,” Ignis was saying, but Gladio was too preoccupied with examining the wound to give a smartass reply. “How bad is it?” Ignis asked, when Gladio had been silent a little too long.

Gladio sighed, but the wound at least seemed clean. There was nothing else he could do for now except bandage it up to protect it, and call for help. “Another scar for the collection,” he said, feeling the words tug uncomfortably at his heart. Ignis’s skin had been a pristine canvas for his freckles, which had painted constellations across his body when this journey had begun. Now half his face was a ruin of gnarled skin, and his body was crisscrossed and gouged beneath his clothes. Gladio had once spent long nights trying to find every freckle Ignis had with his lips, kissing each and every one, including the little line of three over the peak of his left buttock, and the one that hid on the upper inside of his right thigh.

Gladio had been thrilled to find that one. Even Ignis hadn’t known it was there, and he’d called Gladio a cheat and a liar until he’d sat up and looked for himself and been forced to concede that yes, he really did have a freckle just there. Gladio was the only one that knew about it, and he’d treasured that knowledge as they’d journeyed with Noct, feeling the way the little shared secret had tied himself and Ignis together with an invisible thread.

Now he dreaded examining Ignis’ body. Every time he did he found a new scar, and learned about some new brush with death. He desperately wanted Noct back, and this darkness to end, so he could return to counting Ignis’ freckles, knowing the sunny days would bring out more of them, and that there need never be another scar.

He wrapped the remains of his shirt around Ignis’s leg, saying, “Sorry,” when Ignis hissed through his teeth at the touch. He tied the makeshift bandage off, happy it was secure, and then sat back on his haunches to pull his phone out and send a message to the emergency contact. His phone buzzed a minute later, acknowledging their distress call and telling them to sit tight. Rescue would be along for them within the hour. Gladio smiled, wondering if it would be Prompto, or Iris, knowing both of them were in the area, and then shuffled until he could curl his arms around Ignis and tug him back to lean against him. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

“More than I’d like,” Ignis replied, settling himself into Gladio’s arms, just like he had when they’d curled up on the bed in the Leville together and watched the sunrise through the window. “Less than it could,” he added. “Thank you.”

Gladio tightened his arms around Ignis, feeling his weight and his warmth as he turned his head to press a kiss to Ignis’ hair. Ignis’ hand reaching up and resting over his own, fingers questing between and then curling through Gladio’s as they parted to let him in was all the reply either of them needed.


End file.
